ADMIN

10/1 Today I am grateful for: -The organizers and volunteers of the inaugural TechBash for all their hard work that paid off in a very good conference. -Stephen showing me how to connect to my company's VPN. -Making it home last night, despite a flight being delayed, then canceled.

9/30 Today I am grateful for dinner last night with Kendall, Joel, Ondrej, and Glenn.

9/28 Today I am grateful for dinner last night with James, Glenn, and Justin

9/27 Today I am grateful for fact-checkers.

9/26 Today I am grateful for a photo walk around the South Loop to capture all the local artwork.

9/24 Today I am grateful for a productive week.

9/23 Today I am grateful for coffee yesterday with Lwin, Min, and Tierney.

9/21 Today I am grateful for coffee with Pete yesterday.

9/20 Today I am grateful for -dinner and drinks last night with Tierney, Jason, and Claire -my first (awful) taste of Jeppson's Malort

9/19 Today I am grateful for a weekend with Tim.

9/18 Today I am grateful to watch the Spartans defeat the Irish at Notre Dame Stadium yesterday - my first game there since 1989.

9/17 Today I am grateful that my son is in town this weekend.

9/16 Today I am grateful for a week in the Seattle area.

9/15 Today I am grateful to attend an offsite event with teammates I don't see often enough.

9/14 Today I am grateful for a boat cruise last night around Lake Washington and Lake Union.

9/13 Today I am grateful to see many of my teammates from across the country yesterday.

9/12 Today I am grateful for: -My first Seahawks game at Century Link Field yesterday; -Dinner with Ted and Charlotte and friends last night.

9/11 Today I am grateful for lunch with Kelly yesterday.

9/10 Today I am grateful for an infinite selection of online music.

9/9 Today I am grateful that my son played for a Hall of Fame basketball coach.

9/8 Today I am grateful for my first time guest-lecturing at the University of Illinois.

9/7 Today I am grateful I had a chance to spend time yesterday with Matthew after he arrived in Chicago and before I left town.

Thousands of years ago, society began to collapse on the the planet Arbre. The intellectuals of the time retreated into concents - monasteries in which the occupants are sealed off from the rest of the world - sometimes for centuries at a time.

Although the concents were founded to preserve the knowledge of Arbre, most of the occupants (known as avouts) are kept ignorant and even forbidden from learning many things about the world around them.

Erasmas - an avout of the Concent of Saunt Edhar - has his world turned upside down when his friend and mentor Orolo discovers an alien spacecraft orbiting Arbre. Orolo is thrown out of the Concent for daring to use forbidden technology that allowed him to observe the spacecraft. Shortly afterward, Erasmus and his friends are also exiled and pursue Orolo to discover what he has learned.

The novel climaxes in a battle between the Arbrelings and one faction of the aliens.

It takes a while to get there as it explores the concept of how alternate versions of the same reality can manifest themselves in multiple cosmos and what happens when people move between these alternate realities.

Anathem satirizes the idea of those who try to preserve knowledge, but restrict access to new information and discovery. The novel succeeds brilliantly with its social satire and its attention to detail. For some, it may fall short with its slow pacing and lack of action.

If you prefer your science fiction more cerebral than swashbuckling, Anathem is for you.

Yesterday, I posted a YouTube video of a recent presentation. The group that recorded the video began recording well before I went on stage, so the video contained over 10 minutes of silence and a couple minutes of announcements.

I wanted to embed the video on my blog, but I wanted it to start playing at the moment the organizer introduced me.

YouTube provides an easy way to embed a video. Click the “Share” icon (Fig. 1) below the video

If you click the “SHOW MORE” link, you will get a few options for your video (Fig. 3) but not the option to change the default start time. By default, your video will start at the very beginning when the user starts playing it.

Fig. 3

YouTube provides HTML that you can paste into your web page to embed a video. It looks similar to the following:

<iframewidth="560"height="315"

src=https://www.youtube.com/embed/9wpN7Ho7DBQ?rel=0

frameborder="0"allowfullscreen>

</iframe>

To set the start time, add a “start” parameter to the end of the URL in the iframe’s “src” attribute, as in the following example.

<iframewidth="560"height="315"

src=https://www.youtube.com/embed/9wpN7Ho7DBQ?rel=0&amp;start=753

frameborder="0"allowfullscreen>

</iframe>

The value of the “start” querystring parameter is the number of seconds from the beginning at which you want the video to start playing.

I wanted my video to start at the 12 minute, 33 second mark, so I had to do some math:

Last month, I delivered a presentation on Cognitive Services at That Conference in Wisconsin Dells, WI. Carl Schweitzer of MS Dev Show interviewed me to discuss the features of these APIs. My interview starts at the 7:58 mark of the video below.

9/4 Today I am grateful for all the information and code samples available online.

9/3 Today I am grateful that my son Tim continues to make me proud 22 years after his birth. Happy birthday Tim!

9/2 Today I am grateful for the start of the college football season.

9/1 Today I am grateful we are finally starting to code this project we have been talking about for months.

8/31 Today I am grateful for students at Purdue last night who were eager to learn.

8/30 Today I am grateful for drinks with Kevin last night.

8/29 Today I am grateful for a visit to Jane Adams's Hull House at UIC yesterday.

8/28 Today I am grateful to attend the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio tour yesterday in Oak Park.

8/27 Today I am grateful that I have no overnight trips planned for the next 2 weeks.

8/26 Today I am grateful for meetings at Microsoft this week that addressed my number 1 concern: better communication.

8/25 Today I am grateful for a reception at the Purple Café in Bellevue last night.

8/24 Today I am grateful for the espresso machine in my kitchen.

8/23 Today I am grateful for a day at home to catch up on a hundred little things.

8/22 Today I am grateful for the flights of Wine at Andie's Mediterranean in Andersonville last night.

8/21 Today I am grateful for a visit to Madison, WI yesterday.

8/19 Today I am grateful for: -Seeing the "America After the Fall" exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago -Stumbling upon the "Chefs on the Grill" event at Millennium Park -Dinner at Vapiano for the first time -An apology from United Airlines

8/18 Today I am grateful for 2 days in Champaign, IL.

8/17 Today I am grateful to kick off this project at the University of Illinois.